CHARLES DICKENS DOMBEY AND SON CHAPTER I Dombey and ...

to Mrs. MacStinger, and kept prisoner by that lady in a secret chamber on a
short allowance of victuals.
CHAPTER L
Mr. Toots's Complaint
THERE was an empty room above-stairs at the Wooden Midshipman's, which, in
days of yore, had been Walter's bedroom. Walter, rousing up the Captain
betimes in the morning, proposed that they should carry thither such
furniture out of the little parlour as would grace it best, so that Florence
might take possession of it when she rose. As nothing could be more
agreeable to Captain Cuttle than making himself very red and short of breath
in such a cause, he turned to (as he himself said) with a will; and, in a
couple of hours, this garret was transformed into a species of land-cabin,
adorned with all the choicest moveables out of the parlour, inclusive even
of the Tartar frigate, which the Captain hung up over the chimneypiece with
such extreme delight, that he could do nothing for half-an-hour afterwards
but walk backward from it, lost in admiration.
The Captain could be induced by no persuasion of Walter's to wind up the big
watch, or to take back the canister, or to touch the sugar-tongs and
teaspoons. 'No, no, my lad,' was the Captain's invariable reply to any
solicitation of the kind, 'I've made that there little property over,
jintly.' These words he repeated with great unction and gravity, evidently
believing that they had the virtue of an Act of Parliament, and that unless
he committed himself by some new admission of ownership, no flaw could be
found in such a form of conveyance.